The Tech Is Not Racist

News has reached me that The Tech has received a letter signed by
several organizations - among them Gays, Lesbians, Bisexuals, Transgenders,
and Friends at MIT - that criticizes The Tech for publishing
material harassing to minorities including gays.

I am sorry to hear that some people are offended. But I cannot remain
silent and let the position expressed in that letter be mistaken for mine.
I am a GAMIT alum, an out-of-the-closet gay employee, and a white man who
had a long term relationship with a black man. With this experience, I do
not presume to say what is racist. I only say what does and does not offend
me personally.

If the letter truly represents the position of GAMIT, then it serves
more to show that I must distance myself from that organization and the
fights its executives choose to pick. It seems to me that the letter
represents a call to arms to engage in some sort of just war on the evil
Tech for being racist, as if racism were some absolute thing that is
obvious to all. Speaking only from my limited experience, I have seen
racism but generally from ignorant people who chose to ignore how they were
unfairly pressuring other people with their thoughtless acts.

I have never seen The Tech to exhibit an editorial policy in
favor of oppression of any minority. The MIT administration bends over
backward to try and foster plurality and diversity. What I see from the
letter signed by GAMIT is an attempt on the part of deeply offended people,
who have only the force of their convictions, to try and establish a
particular aesthetic and to call all else racist. Personally, I find the
letter to be analogous to the sort of call for censorship by people who
wish to boycott anything that talks openly about homosexuality because it
is offensive to family values.

What is the intended outcome here? I would prefer an outcome where
people become more sensitized to their actions and learn to listen to more
sides of a discussion. I do not want to see the outcome where people feel
they cannot express themselves for fear of being beaten up, whether that
expression is holding hands with a member of the same sex publicly or
drawing pictures of rhinoceros- shaped superheroes.